Category: 1994

December 21, 1994

Kinghorse – Too Far Gone

December 21 , 1994

Kinghorse
Too Far Gone: Unreleased Recordings 1988-1992 compact disc
[SDK-39] black and white press printed covers

Th When Too Far Gone was released, Louisville’s legendary iron ship hybrid of punk and metal, Kinghorse, had been broken up for over three years. Since their breakup, they had been revered and essentially worshipped as an unmatched, historical pinnacle of Louisville’s punk movement. Any attempt to explain the fervor by which the band’s followers venerated the group will fail completely.

During their four years together, Kinghorse had seamlessly dominated the local scene; attracting the largest crowds, earning the fattest guarantees, and setting the standards for the scale and level of resourcefulness by which all local bands would operate. And by breaking up in the fall of 1992, at the height of their popularity, they added the mystique of infallibility to their arsenal.

Kinghorse was possibly part of a scene of their own, and locally, they seemed to do everything right. Right for themselves, at least. All four members brought scene seniority to the band from the very start, as former members of other legendary Louisville bands, Maurice, Malignant Growth, Solution Unknown, and Fading Out. Plus, with Mike Bucayu in the bass guitar position, they had the local big guns of Self Destruct Records on their side. The group boasted the always controversial Sean “Rat” Garrison singing, the no nonsense Mark Abromavage on guitar, and the unreal Kevin Brownstein on drums.

In a December 1990 Courier-Journal review, Paul Curry wrote, “The world of Kinghorse is a dark, frightening place where understanding and compassion seem to be absent, where the individual has been oppressed beyond recognition and forgotten. Until now. Kinghorse represents the rebirth of the individual and the raging struggle necessary to maintain and nourish the soul; they are the musical embodiment of the holy war between illness and health.”

However menacing the powers of Kinghorse became, they definitely grew to know their limits. Their music seemed to lose a tremendous amount of its energy when it became a recording, and the phenomenon of their intense popularity never seemed to translate (in any significant numbers) to non-Louisvillian audiences. Both of these downfalls of their otherwise rock solid assault manifested themselves with the release of the first two Kinghorse records.

Their first seven inch was “Brother Doubt”/“Freeze” in 1989 on Self Destruct. Recorded at Sound On Sound by Howie Gano, September 3, 1988, the record was a wildfire when it arrived at ear X-tacy. The 500 copies were history in a couple months. The record was unique for several reasons, the first of which was that both songs were on Side One, and the flip side was an etching of the lyrics. The other interesting thing about it was that the subpar recording and even-worse mastering caused the sound quality on Kinghorse’s debut to portray their music in a much lower calibre than the razor sharp group could have performed it. Regardless of the lo-fi audio, the band was quickly shuffled off to do an album for Caroline Records in New York. Both the label and the band had no idea what they were getting into.

Kevin Brownstein pictured on the Too Far Gone CD tray card, with what was to become the trademark Slamdek CD spine design on either side.

The album was recorded in the Big Apple at Chung King House Of Metal. The back cover of it describes better than anything what everyone’s first impression of it was. Huge yellow letters, larger than the band members names, proclaim, “Produced by Glenn Danzig.” Glenn was an old friend of Kinghorse singer Sean Garrison, and Caroline apparently seized the opportunity to capitalize on Danzig’s current celebrity status. One listen to the album would discourage any producer from putting their name on it, much less in letters so large. You can almost hear the bass. The process of accurately transferring the band’s music from a performance into a recording had once again failed. Nonetheless, the record, encased in a piece of unfinished-looking “artwork” by Pushead, and accompanied by Caroline’s marketing strategy, hit stores in November 1990. They went on a full U.S. tour in support of the record the following year.
The hell they raised at Caroline is probably best captured by Woody MacDermott. He worked for Caroline in their promotions department, and wrote the following eulogy in 1994 for Slamdek’s Too Far Gone CD…

“When Kinghorse finally called it quits in the fall of 1992, I felt like I had just been paroled. For the prior two years, they consumed most of my time and all of my sanity. Dealing with them was a fucking nightmare. They were completely unprepared for the ‘professional’ music business and unwilling to even try to be. We became fast friends.

“Around the same time that Kinghorse recorded their only album for Caroline Records, I was promoted from working in the warehouse to the label’s promotions department. I had no clue what I was supposed to do. They proved to be my most valuable lesson. Almost immediately I connected with the four yahoos from Kentucky. The relationship began cordially over the phone with Mike and quickly degenerated into daily prank phone calls and insult matches. Kevin and Rat were brought in as backup, while Mark seemed pleased the others had a new distraction.

“A month before the album’s release, Halloween 1990, the label decided to showcase the band at the annual Foundations Forum heavy metal convention. Right away I knew this was a big mistake. About 30 people saw them play, but everyone was glad to see them go home when it was all over. For three days they went completely berserk from sensory overload. It was my first time meeting them and I was expecting the worst. Within hours Mike and Kevin felt comfortable enough with me to tackle me and tape my legs together. When I split Mike’s eyelid open and bit Kevin on the back, I knew I passed initiation.

“The two times Kinghorse played New York City, I was dumb enough to let them stay with me. The things that were done in my bathroom remain unspeakable. My phone bill doubled from all the prank calls made to escort services. We even forced poor Mark to play the Vanilla Ice board game.

“Their summer ’91 tour was an even bigger mess. They drove each other nuts to keep themselves amused. Mark’s powder blue fishing cap never left his head the entire trip.

Rat did not medicate himself regularly and behaved unpredictably. Mike would get so loaded that he would do things like put a pork rind in his ass and then eat it. Kevin delighted in singing along with his Gameboy in various character voices.

“I made the trip down to Louisville in July ’92, mainly to eat King’s Fried Chicken, but also to witness what turned out to be the final Kinghorse show. I met all the local legends (Sweet Harry, Gurt Bucket, Pop Tart, the Sleepwalker, etc.) and was greatly impressed with the local scene they inspired and were inspired by. Things seemed set for a second album, but it all fell apart pretty fast. Since the separation, it’s been easier to deal with them as individuals, but much less fun. You should be glad they’re not around anymore to be your friend.”

In the summer of 1994, Matt Loeser and I had what we thought was an impossible idea. In the two years since the band had broken up, bootleg cassettes had been circulating of Kinghorse’s last two demos. The first of these was a six-song Sound On Sound session from October 3, 1991. The band’s third and final record was pulled from this session. It was another seven inch on Self Destruct, “Going Home”/“Lose It.” These six songs were a demo for their second album on Caroline. The other unreleased demo was a four-song cassette eight-track recording made at their practice space by Scott Walker in June 1992, just before they threw in the towel.
Our idea was to approach the former members of the band about having those tapes released in an official form on Slamdek. “Yeah right,” we thought. Kinghorse was still much bigger than we, and at that, deceased and untouchable. Sean Garrison and Mark Abromavage had all but dropped out of the realm of circulation, Mike Bucayu had opened Blue Moon Records in Holiday Manor, and Kevin Brownstein was living in Dallas and engineering at a million dollar studio.

Our best bet was Mike since he most likely had the master tapes. But even if he agreed to it and gave us the tapes, we still had three other members to locate and get permission from. That was the real problem.

After a week or so of joking about the preposterous prospect of having a Kinghorse record on Slamdek, I finally just said “enough” and stopped by Mike’s apartment on Cherokee Road. It was a cool, rainy Friday night and I went by to drop off a check for Self Destruct merchandise I had sold through Slamdek mail orders. We talked about this and that and I got up the nerve to ask him about the unreleased tracks. To my surprise, he didn’t seem to care one way or another. He almost seemed pleased to give me the 10/3/91 DAT. I was sure as hell pleased to have it in my pocket and I just about wet my britches as soon as I walked out the door with it. I think I even did one of those “touchdown!” dances once I got outside. I could not believe it. I figured that Mike and Sean would be the biggest obstacles to overcome, and one was taken care of. I went back and met Matt and we both were ecstatic.

A few nights later I was lucky enough to hear that the always elusive Rat was at Blockbuster Video on Bardstown Road. I got in my car and zipped the five blocks there as fast as I could. I caught him and quickly ran the idea by him as he was pacing up and down the aisles spying videos. The frantic, short-haired version of the Rat we once knew agreed that it was some of the band’s best stuff. And he told me he thought it would be good if people could hear it. It was good to see him again, much less to see him getting excited about his former band. I left that evil video store with an unbelievable feeling. Two down, two to go.

Mike and Sean were the two members of the band I knew best, and I figured if they wanted it to happen then Kevin and Mark would probably be behind it, too. Sean got excited about it and went ahead and called both of them. They were interested. It was unreal. I knew that a Kinghorse CD of unreleased material on Slamdek was going to be huge, it was going to be unprecedented, and it was going to solidify the label’s role as “Louisville’s Record Company” once and for all. Kinghorse, especially for Slamdek, was the great beyond, the unthinkable, the icing on the cake we call Louisville. Everything was set.

I began talking to Kevin in Dallas on the telephone. The plan evolved quickly from a six-song CD of the October ’91 recording into a disc that compiled all of Kinghorse’s unavailable material. This included work from three different recordings: the six-song Sound On Sound demo (10/91), the four-song Scott Walker cassette recording (6/92), and to my immense delight, six of the eight songs from the band’s first recording (9/88) [the two missing tracks comprised their first 7″]. Since Kevin was working in a mega-studio at the time, he was interested in getting a hold of the original reels and completely remixing as many of the tracks as possible. I thought that was fine, but I didn’t have any money to offer him for the studio time. He had recently laid a kitchen floor in his boss’ house who owed him a favor for doing so. Kevin concentrated on getting the tracks remixed, Sean worked on getting all the lyrics together, and I started working on the layout.

Kevin’s task in this process was undoubtedly the most tedious, time consuming, and difficult. He spent several days working on the material, some of which was in pretty bad shape. Scott Walker’s cassette eight-track recording was transferred to a digital multitrack tape to make it easier to work with. Kevin’s friend Tim Kimsey, who worked on the second Pantera album, assisted him with the grueling task. But the multitrack master for the first Sound On Sound session was not saved, so those six songs were simply transferred from the 1/4″ mixdown reel. Kevin also took care of clearing the new release through Caroline, with whom the defunct Kinghorse was still technically contracted.

Kevin and I talked several times a week, both cramming to get the project done quickly for a Christmas season release, yet double-checking every last detail with every member of the band. It also had to be shipped off before I left for a five-week Metroschifter tour in early November. We located some really nice pictures which had been shot in 1992 for a story in Louisville Music News. A professional photographer took them, however, and charged us about a million dollars to use them. My intense excitement about the CD was the only thing that got my part done on time. Those guys drove me fucking crazy when we were putting the artwork together. Every little last small little thing itsy bitsy microscopic thing had to be an issue. The last few days of the project, I slept maybe two or three hours a night. There just wasn’t enough time. By the time it was all finished, I felt so compelled that I asked the band if I could include a few words about the CD itself in the liner notes. They agreed…

“During the process of creating this compilation, it has become painfully apparent that the differences that exist between Kinghorse members have not been resolved. I have also learned that none of them were ever willing to take a back seat to any of the other members in making decisions. Now, over two years after the break up of the band, all the former members of Kinghorse still seem completely nit-picky about every last detail of the way their music is presented. This could easily explain how they remained so true to form through four years together. It could also explain their untimely demise as a group. They have apparently never encountered the word compromise. They don’t compromise with outsiders, and they don’t compromise with each other. However long ago these songs were recorded, everyone involved still feels very strongly for them. Every single one of the many factors that had to come into play -to make a release like this possible- are nothing short of miracles. Everything from getting the master tapes together to getting everyone to agree on a layout; from remixing ten of the songs to borrowing enough money to pay for all of it; none of this could have been accomplished without everyone’s cooperation.

“Much of the work done on Slamdek over the years, and by countless other Louisville labels and musicians, has been directly inspired by Kinghorse. Their ideas of hard work, dedication to purpose, and die-hard resourcefulness had an effect on virtually every Louisville band. Having the Slamdek logo on a Kinghorse release seems not only a miracle, but also an impossible dream come true. Every headache and sleepless night it took to complete this monumental task were undoubtedly worth it.”

Everything was finally in order and delivered to Midwest Records in Dallas, who made the CD’s. John Timmons from ear X-tacy helped yet another Slamdek release materialize by pre-ordering several hundred discs. I left on the five-week U.S. tour with the Metroschifter, periodically keeping in contact by telephone with Kevin, John, and Clay Thompson at Midwest. Since I was out of town, when the discs arrived in mid-December, the entire order was delivered to ear X-tacy in Tyler Park Plaza. At 2,000 units, this was the largest initial order of any Slamdek release. In exchange for the pre-order, ear X-tacy had a four-week exclusive on the CD and they moved about 300 of them by Christmas. Pretty much everyone I knew got one for Christmas as well. It was cool.

The credits page of the inside booklet included the Self Destruct and Slamdek logos side by side, and the note, “This compilation was made possible through the gracious cooperation of Caroline Records and Self Destruct Records.”

Just before Too Far Gone hit the shelves, I talked with Kevin in Dallas from a pay phone on tour in Minneapolis. He told me that he and Sean had been talking about putting the band back together. “Oh my God,” was all I could say. Kevin was going to come to Louisville for a few weeks surrounding Christmas, during which they’d all get together. If things clicked like they used to and it seemed to be the thing to do, Kevin would move back and the ’horse would ride again.

By the time Kevin arrived in Louisville, it was clear that bassist Mike Bucayu wanted nothing to do with a reformed Kinghorse. He had left his six-year post behind the counter at ear X-tacy to become the owner and full-time keeper of Blue Moon Records in Holiday Manor shopping center. Mike said he would do some reunion shows in support of the CD, but he had no interest in reforming the group on a permanent basis. The other three members made a crucial decision to put Kinghorse on stage for the first time with a different lineup. The teenaged Jerry Cunningham of Raze was selected to fill Mike’s shoes.

Between Christmas and the reformed Kinghorse’s first show, Slamdek closed down. Nonetheless, April 22, 1995 at the Grand Theatre in New Albany, the Hate Machine was reborn. Before hundreds of teenaged lemmings, many of whom were familiar with Kinghorse only through the band’s tall legend, poorly produced album, and new CD on Slamdek, the reformed group took the stage. The sound check we witnessed that day was unreal. Not only was it Kinghorse in 1995 doing a sound check, but they sounded great, like they never stopped to take three years off. A blast from the past.

When show time rolled around, Mark arrived intoxicated and in no condition to perform the set. The show went on anyway. And, in so many words, for the first time ever, they sucked. Here’s the play-by-play as reported in Hard Times by the Godfather, Darrell Ray Elmore…

Mark’s drunk. Near as I can tell, he’s been drunk a good long while; he and the rest of his cronies down at the Love Cafe, just a hop, skip and a jump from the Grand Theatre in New Albany. I had left the Grand just as Enkindel were starting their set… mainly because it was an all ages show, and there was no liquid refreshment being served stronger than a Mr. Pibb.

Also, I had the feeling that there would be some boys from the band hanging at this small, seedy hole-in-the-wall bar… call it a journalistic instinct. Sure enough, at the back of the shotgun-house-turned-tavern is Kinghorse guitarist Mark Abromavage, holding court with Big Irv, Bill Murphy, and some guy they keep calling “Burnt Cheese,” or some such shit.

I barely clear the entrance of the Love Cafe before Mark bursts into a hail of catcalls and “Hey Motherfucker!”s. The boys are swilling a vile cinnamon liquor with the dubious name of “After Shock,” and have already established a ritual method of drinking the foul potion.
“Drink it!” shouts Mark in my ear, “Then SMELL it!” I know better than to disappoint these boys, and hurriedly drain a small shot glass in order to quickly become a member of the club.

I’ve known Mark for a good long time. I’ve hung out with him, learned a few guitar licks from him, drank with him, but never have I seen him under the bright-white influence of rock & roll stardom. It is one of the things that makes this whole scene interesting… to me, Mark is just this guy that lives up the street, eats mostly vegetarian food, tells the funniest stories I’ve ever heard (the man possesses a fantastic wit and natural story-telling talent combined with a gift for impromptu sound effects), and usually wears one of those little toboggans that were so popular among the hardcore set a few years back. But to thousands of rock and rollers, he is a myth, a legend in his own time, a guitar God who rides on the wings of bad-ass, downright mean, balls-out, in-your-face, tough guy talent.

And with good reason. Kinghorse, the band, is perhaps the biggest local act to come down the pike since Squirrel Bait or Slint. The ’Horse has its own following, and the respect of just about every skate-punk death-rocker in the world. Glenn Danzig produced their album, which as is the custom, was released just prior to the band’s breakup four years ago. Or has it been three? Anyway, now they’re back.

If Mark Abromavage is the balls of Kinghorse, then Sean Garrison is the brains. Sean, commonly known as Rat amongst regular scenesters, has consciously fostered the image of a crazy-man. While riding around downtown in preparation for the photo that graces this issue’s cover, Sean regaled my photographer, Tom Willis, and I with imitations of Ethel Merman singing select songs from the Willy Wonka soundtrack… It is a careful, from-the-ground-up approach to modern rock and roll marketing, and Sean will be the first to admit it. That in itself is one of the major dualities of this band. They are punk for punk’s sake, even if the music that rolls offstage when the ’Horse is on its feet and galloping owes more of a debt to Black Sabbath than anything the Ramones or the Sex Pistols ever recorded.

Which is perfect for the redneck take that many of the all-agers have brought up with them from the Ohio mud that surround this town and its scene. Not quite Texas-like in its devotion to the three B’s of sentimentality: Beer, Broads, and Brawls, the local scene still has more than its share of young brimming-with-energy, white males that desperately need to “go off” every once in a while. And Kinghorse provides more than enough opportunity for the kind of high-energy slam-dancing and moshing that is necessary to satiate the appetites of those afflicted with piss & vinegar disease.

THE SHOW

…There is a feeling of off-balanced teetering coming from Kinghorse’s return to the stage… as if they are struggling to find a groove that has long laid fallow in the dusty closet of Sean and Mark’s lives. Abromavage seems to be taking longer adjusting the modified tunings that he so dearly loves to play “just to fuck with people.” And it seems to be wearing thin on Sean’s nerves.
Which is understandable. While Mark is tuning, at least he has something to do… whereas Sean is forced to stare out at the audience with something like charisma that he is obviously not feeling.

The day after the show, I received a phone call from Mark. He told me that he had noticed my notebook, and figured I was “working” the night before. “If you could,” he asked, “just put in there how sorry I am, ’cuz I was drunk, and I wasn’t really performing as well as I should have. Last thing I remember is one minute, I’m downing After Shocks with you and Irv and Bill, and the next minute, I’m on stage botchin’ “Razor.” It sucks ’cuz I wasn’t even on something cool, like heroin, or speed. I was just a drunk, and that’s not cool at all.”

Clever insight, from a man who “screwed the pooch” just twelve hours previous.

…Down on the floor, Sean was ripping the crowd into a frenzy, screaming, sharing the mic with the boys against the stage, dropping the mic mid-rant so that only those within a few feet could hear his unamplified “message.”

“It was like a mass indictment on everyone who came to the show,” said one introspective, sweaty punk, “it was like he looked right into the most private thoughts of my life and spit them back at me like I was the worthless trash that I am.”

Mark held it together despite his “condition”: the band’s trademark guitar sound was all over the room. Pictures of the show reveal that Mark was a bit uncomfortable, maybe even worried.

Sean, when he wasn’t spewing “poetry” or bitching about Mark’s time-consuming “special” tunings, seemed ready to act up. His patented Manson stare was not in blatant evidence; his presence was confident, but his energy seemed divided. Turns out, he was mad at Mark. Said Garrison, “At the point where the mic stand went down, it was either the mic stand or Mark.” He’s referring to the 40-gauge super-indestructible mic stand that he bought early on in Kinghorse’s infancy. Seems the guys were paying for too many wimpy, busted mic stands after their shows, so Sean bought one that wouldn’t break. It was a legendary element of the band’s practical attitude toward playing out when the guys were a mainstay in the scene all those years ago. After the show at the Grand, however, it looked like a pretzel.

After the show at the Grand, the band was very anxious to get the word out that that was obviously not the Kinghorse that had become so legendary. The quickest way to do that was to play again and prove the opposite. Later that summer, looking back on the experience of the band getting screwed by Caroline, breaking up, and then flopping at their comeback show, Sean told Highlands Lowlife fanzine, “We even have to totally establish our local supremacy again. There are a lot of people who were at that Grand show who will never come to another gig. Maybe they will in six months. I hate to say it, but it almost seemed that it was the will of something that was way bigger than us. Like a pre-disastered start to which nothing else can pale. Now I feel as if this band is almost pre-disastered. Everything bad that could have conceivably happened to this band has already happened. I can’t conceivably imagine anything else happening, unless one of us commits suicide, or is hit by a car. I can’t think of anything else that hasn’t gone wrong already!”

The band lost everything, but somehow didn’t lose its desire. They fought back quickly with shows at the Cherokee (former Tewligans building) and the Butchertown Pub, regular (or irregular) appearances on the Sell Out Louisville Style radio program, their own forms of printed propaganda, and loads of out-of-town show dates.

As I’m sitting here writing this book, it is still amazing to me that Kinghorse is a band. They have persevered and anything that has been thrown their way has not seemed to damage them in any way. Everything we always respected about them years ago, that caused us all to mimic their methods, still hold true about them today. I can’t think of any other Louisville band that has ever been truer-to-form than Kinghorse or more revered as a truly Louisvillian phenomenon. I also can’t name any band on Slamdek whose addition to the label surprised me more, or made me feel more like the label’s relevance to the city’s musical history was important.

To everyone’s delight, Too Far Gone was met with a wave of excellent local reviews and took its rightful place as the most anticipated release Louisville had been waiting for… and didn’t even know it.

LINER NOTES:

Mark Abromavage, guitar
Kevin Brownstein, drums
Mike Bucayu, bass
Sean Garrison, vocals

Track listing:
01 Never
02 Fear Him
03 Going Home
04 Lose It
05 Crimson Hands
06 Turn And Fire
07 Skipper Incident*
08 Awaken
09 Fourth Step
10 Lay Down And Die
11 What Am I Supposed To Do?
12 Bastards Like Me
13 Too Far Gone
14 Ode To Gurt Bucket*
15 That
16 Charge!
17 Versus
18 Let It Come Down
19 Pesterus Markus*

*=prank call tracks

Kinghorse
1029 Bardstown Road #2
Louisville, Ky 40204
(include a SASE)

Produced by Kevin Brownstein, CD Prep by Frank Salizar, Designed by Scott Ritcher, Background graphics by Mooch, Cover Photos by Nick Bonura.

Thanks to: John Timmons and ear X-tacy, Scott Ritcher, Tim Kimsey, Clint Strickland, Chris MacDermott, Blue Moon Records, Brian Murphy, Gertrude Bucket, Scott Walker, Stefanie Donnelly, our friends, families, and fans.

Tracks 1-6:
Recorded 10/8/91 at Mom’s, engineered by Howie Gano. Remixed 10/94 at Dallas Sound Lab by Tim Kimsey and Kevin Brownstein.

Tracks 8-13:
Recorded 9/3/88 at Mom’s, engineered and mixed by Howie Gano.

Tracks 15-18:
Recorded 6/92 at Mark’s apartment on a Fostex cassette eight-track, engineered by Scott Walker. Remixed 10/94 at Concept Logic by Tim Kimsey and Kevin Brownstein, assisted by Clint Strickland.

All songs by Kinghorse, lyrics by Sean Garrison except “Lay Down And Die” lyrics by Brett Ralph, music by Mark Abromavage; and “What Am I Supposed to Do?” lyrics and music by Mark Abromavage.

Tracks 7 and 19 field recordings and arrangement by Kevin Brownstein. Track 14 performed by Hank Sharmann and the TP Rollers. [aka Kevin]

October 31, 1994

The Telephone Man – Castner c/w Automatic Pilot

October 31, 1994
The Telephone Man
Castner c/w Automatic Pilot seven inch
[SDK-38] First 300: handmade designs on blank white seven inch covers with photocopied inserts. Second 200: laser printed one-of-a-kind covers with fax paper inserts.

The Telephone Man’s second studio release unsuspectingly became the last release of new material that Slamdek would issue. The two-song seven inch was the result of a summer’s worth of energy. It began in May 1994 when bassist Ashli State left the band to play full time in Guilt, with whom she was already sharing her skills. At the beginning of June, Matt Ronay graduated from duPont Manual High School. The night of his graduation, I expressed to him how sad I was that the Telephone Man full length album we were planning wasn’t going to be happening. He, Ben Brantley, and I hung out that night and drove out to Fern Creek to play Putt-Putt. We had a lot of fun during the excursion. As the conversation progressed, I volunteered that if the three remaining band members would stick together, I would play bass for the rest of the summer so they could record an album of all their current material. After seeing great bands like Crawdad and Sister Shannon escape the recording process, I wasn’t about to let that happen to another one of my favorite bands, if I could help it. Ben and Matt agreed, as did drummer Nick
Hennies when they told him.

Three months earlier, while Ashli was still in the bass position, they had recorded four more songs at DSL. The February 1994 session remains unissued with the slight exception of “Let Me Tell You…” that appeared on a free cassette given away at the first Slamdek Rockers field hockey game in March ’94. This recording session was part of the beginning of the end of Ashli’s work with the band. She had to leave the studio early to practice with Guilt. Matt wasn’t too happy about that.

“Douglass Boulevard”: The boy’s angel was out at sea. He had an anchor tied to his hip. I let him go… Hovering over the boy, the angel spread his sparse wings around the boy. The light still shone through his wings, they were all worn from protecting. All that the boy thinks that he has been through. He came into the room holding the small, red bag in one hand, reaching for the nail to put it upon. He reached and reached and fit it upon the resting place where it was supposed to cover him up at night. Last night he was covered, even though the boy and the angels slept in separate rooms. The boy knelt down in his tattered garden. A desperate tear clinging to his face, the fluid blurred his disturbed sight. Revealing only the emptiness before him. The dirty hands that are all stained only because of him, that are scarred only because of him, that are callused because of what he did to himself, that are worn to the bone because of the things that he said to himself every morning.

“Let Me Tell You How Much I Like You So You Can Treat Me Like Shit”: Why? Why did I have to be the one to keep your mind off her? Was I random? Was I convenient? I didn’t want to be a piece in your game. Isn’t it funny how the person who makes you feel like everything can make you feel like nothing? I didn’t need you to make me think that everything I ever thought about myself was true. Why didn’t you tell me that you were afraid? I didn’t need you. I didn’t need you to make me feel like nothing. I already did. So here I am, aborted, left to walk out of this just like I walked into it. Empty.

“Rain = Flood”: The rain fell down dark and heavy. It covered the windows. It covered everything. It came through the window seals. Hearts made of steel. No more light next to boxes and boxes. Short live long rain. It came running and running. Condensating glass. Crushed me to sleep.

“Kelly”: I feel the pavement is gray, the pavement beckons me to the ground. I feel I should be happy at least once in a while. The nighttime has shred. You remind me as long as I lie to myself I will always be hurt. Temporary is permanent. Forever is a lie. Trust is not a valid reason. Will you stay for a while?

When I joined the band, we began practicing almost immediately. The first few practices were at Nick’s parents’ house in Hikes Point. We were all excited about the prospect of playing with each other and we shared a mutual enthusiasm for the music. By midsummer, practices had been relocated to Matt’s parents’ house in the Highlands and things got increasingly louder as it progressed.

In late July we took all our equipment to a huge house off Brownsboro Road near Chenoweth Lane. The house belonged to the parents of graphic artist and Macintosh guru Zan Hoffman. They were in the process of moving so the house was virtually empty. Over the course of two cool, damp summer nights, Zan recorded our entire hour-long set on an eight track machine. This was to possibly become a Telephone Man album, however, the house was sold and we never had the opportunity to add vocals or mix any of the recording. It all sounded relatively good, though, and had a really wide, crisp, raw sound.

We played a $3 show at a Baxter Avenue coffee house called Highland Grounds in early August with Serial Heroes. Our hour-long set included all of the songs from the February recording except “Rain = Flood,” as well as a few other tunes held over from the later days with Ashli (“If She Tried…”), and new ones that had materialized since I joined (“Heretic,” “Castner,” “Nothing Left To Offer,” and “Automatic Pilot”).

The Telephone Man played its last show upstairs in the Louisville Gardens Theatre with Falling Forward and Hedge on August 18, 1994. We did a shorter version of the same set, playing for 38 minutes, of which I made a DAT recording.

The following day, we visited Mike Baker at DSL to record this seven inch of two new songs from the summer, “Castner” and “Automatic Pilot.” This was the day before Matt went away to school in Baltimore, and hence the last opportunity to document the band. The T-Man’s last stand, so to speak. We were there only a few hours and everything went as smoothly as could be expected. Slamdek was exceptionally low on funds, having put out the Endpoint CD reissue, so the Telephone Man DAT sat around for about a month. When money came in again, it got sent to United in Nashville for the seven inch pressing.

“Castner”: In Castner’s world, things are lit by the light of the moon. It reflects on shiny things. I hold Castner’s hand while I watch flashes of light in the sycamores. In Castner’s world, the sea is a place, the sea is a place where lonely sailors go to. I guess that is where he makes his home. He asked me to understand what it’s like to make the night your home. I try to, I try to understand. I try to, and Castner sleeps. I kissed Castner on the mouth. Castner slept. And then he sank down to the bottom of the sea.

“Automatic Pilot”: For a brief moment I controlled the sun. I gave it life, I saw it dance on the wings. I made it dance on wings on air. Catching my eye. What more could a boy ask for? I gripped the steering shaft. I controlled the sun. I gave it life. I saw rays dance on wings of alloy. I made them dance on wings of steel. Catching my eye and propelling me from my single to a control stick fighter. Until they caught my eye and propelled me from the yoke of my single to the control stick of a fighter. Or maybe it was a Concorde or Boeing. What more could a boy ask for? Maybe something super, something sonic, something I couldn’t control at all.

Matt came home for a weekend in October during which he, Ben, and I trudged through a stack of 300 blank white seven inch covers. With the assistance of Matt’s rubber stamp collection, some colored water, markers, leaves, fabric, and spray adhesive, we made about 300 one-of-a-kind seven inch covers. I later made another 100 with the Macintosh, printing over magazine pages and paper samples Matt and I collected two years earlier while working on the Ennui 7″. And Matt made another 100 when he went back to Baltimore with paint and stencils. The record was released on Halloween to all the usual local stores, and was shortly after picked up in distribution by Caroline, Cargo, Revelation, Network Sound, Victory, and Dutch East.

The Telephone Man seven inch sold about 350 copies in the short four months between its release and the closing of Slamdek. About 150 copies of the first and only pressing remained at that time. As the band’s best selling release, the posthumous record gained them a small cult following and took their music outside of the city limits for the first time.

When Matt returned for the Christmas holidays in 1994, he and Ben began making four track recordings of songs with a country flavor. This project, Marcellus, never released anything nor played live, but put Matt behind the drum set. He also recorded some folky lo-fi songs while at school with friend Mandy Katz. He sent me a tape of some of these notable songs, one of which, “650 Miles,” was covered into a cheesy rock version on Metroschifter’s Number One For A Second 7″.

LINER NOTES:

Side one:
Castner

Side two:
Automatic Pilot

Matt Ronay, guitar
Ben Brantley, guitar/vocals
Nick Hennies, drums
Scott Ritcher bass

Recorded by Mike Baker at DSL

October 15, 1994

The Metroschifter – The Metroschifter Capsule

October 15, 1994

Metroschifter
The Metroschifter Capsule twelve inch
[SDK-37] photocopied stickers on blank white LP jackets with laser printed personalization stickers, photocopied inserts

Personalized version, 375 units, with dog illustration (below) on back. Cover art by Kenn Minter.

This is the story of the first Metroschifter album as I told it in the liner notes to its reissue on Conversion Records:

“How the Kids Made the Metroschifter Album Possible.

“These songs were written two months before the Metroschifter ever became a band. Alone for nine days in a 200-year-old adobe, twelve miles north of Abiquiu, New Mexico, the soon-to-be guitarist of the Metroschifter built seven songs on a multitrack recorder.

“By the time this album was recorded, the Metroschifter (whose members lived in three different states) had only been a band for two and a half weeks. A week after that, they completed a ten day tour. In the weeks following the recording of this album, it became apparent that there was no money to mix or release these songs.

“On a hunch, they sent out about 300 postcards, and handed out about 400 pocket-sized flyers at shows. These cards were advertisements announcing that Slamdek was now accepting orders for the Metroschifter album (which had not yet been mixed), and that it was a limited pressing and had an order deadline. For six dollars, one could order the album and have it delivered to their door months later, personalized with their own name. The idea was that the Kids had money and the Metroschifter didn’t; and the Metroschifter had an album and the Kids didn’t. Somewhere in the middle was an unconventional compromise. If the band could get all the Kids to send in six bucks, then that money would facilitate both the completion and the pressing of the album. The band members held their breath and prayed that this would work.

“Sure enough, in the following weeks, just shy of four hundred kids answered the Metroschifter’s call and sent in their loot. It actually worked. With the Kids’ money in hand, the album was then promptly mixed and sent off to the pressing plant. Despite several delays, all of the fabled personalized Metroschifter albums were sent out within ninety days.

“That’s the unusual story of the album you’re listening to right now. For every band that takes advantage of the bottomless wallets that the Kids’ parents have to offer, the Metroschifter takes nothing for granted. The Fabulous Full Throttle Toll Free Claudia Metroschifter Capsule knows that none of this would have been possible without the faith of hundreds of music lovers who all pitched in to make it happen. The Metroschifter owes it all to the Kids.

“These Kids in particular: Melissa Allen, Mark Amick, Tony Bailey, Hank Baker, Joe Beres, Tom Blankenship, Randy Bolton, Scott Broadhurst, Bill Boulger, Ben Brantley, Nathan Brown, Thommy Browne, Eric Bryant, Brian Cassels, Jason Cavan, Jennie Choi, Michael Cicilian, Sean Joseph Clark, Jacob Colbert, Adele Collins, Ryan Compton, Conversion Records, Todd Cook, Rachel Cox, Sean Cronan, Krissy Davis, Adam Day, Ben Debanana, Jeremy deVine, Max Dollinger, Jeremy Driver, Chris Dulaney, Steve Durm, Jeremie Dyer, Tom Dykas, ear X-tacy, Corey Eckhoff, Greg Edwards, Todd Evanoff, Extreme Noise Records, Sean Fawbush, David Flannigan, Adam Freihaut, Foresight Records, J. Futrell, Wendy Gilbert, Nick Gootee, Guy Gray, Scott Green, Brian Guagliardo, Tom Haile, Richard Hansen, Chad Harrison, Peter Havranek, Dennis Hepinstall, Matt Herron, Chris Higdon, Joel Hunt, Buster Hymen, Initial Records, Hal Jalikakik, Morgan Jeffries, Chad Johnson, Ben Jones, Tim Kallagher, Mike Kay, Derek Kelley, Stephanie Keown, Chad Knight, Andy Knudsen, John Koenig, Cole Kutz, Jeremy Lemaster, Matthew Paige Loeser, Lucus Logsdon, Amelya Luckett, Edward Lutz, Chris McCormick, Scott McCullough, Kelli Ann McLain, Phil McRevis, Dan Miller, Scott Miller, Jonathan Mobley, Jason Eric Moore, Mark Murrmann, Robert Nanna, Richard Nash, Thomas Nelson Jr., Network Sound, Lewis Newkirk, Hilary Cate Newton, Robb Nordstrom, Danny Orendorf, Carrie Osborne, Jackie Owens, Jim Paddack, John Pendleton, Ron Ping, Breck Pipes, Shane Poole, Betsy Porter, Ryan Powers, Amy C. Real, Dennis Remsing, Rhetoric Records, Andy Rich, Matt Ritman, Robert Robinson, Matthew Ronay, Pepe Roni, Matt Rosencrans, Kim Sampson, Jeremy Saunders, Lindsey Schell, Leigh Schnell, Ben Scholle, Robby Scott, Dave Seifert, Shakefork Records, Tim Shaner, Jesse Simpson, Brandon Skipworth, Nadine Slovak, Nathan Smallwood, Chris Smith, Derrick Snodgrass, Ivan Snodgrass, Thida Snow, Grant Staublin, Charles Stopher, Ryan Stratton, Subfusc V&C, Kyle Tabler, Cindy Ternes, Tom Terwillinger, John Timmons, Andy Tinsley, Brian Toombs, the Underground, Andrew Underwood, Ray Vandivier, Aaron Vertrees, Marissa Rose Vicario, Tony Viers, Chris Walls, Megan Ward, Greg Wells, Kley Welsh, Matt Wesolosky, Ronnie Whaley, Christopher Wilding, Drew Wilson, Jim Wilson, Chris Wood, Deam Ziady, Herbie Zimmerman, and last but not least, Ray Zschau.

“Within days of Slamdek’s delivery of all of the albums, friends from Conversion called and offered their services to not only help keep the Metroschifter albums in print, but also to put it into all three formats. By the good grace of Conversion Records, and the Kids’ unyielding faith in Slamdek, you hold in your hands today, the first record by the best band in America.”

Claudia Schiffer version, 50 units, with blank back side.

This part of this book is probably the hardest part for me to write as the first Metroschifter album was the beginning of the era of my life I am currently still living. I don’t have the benefit of hindsight that I’ve had with most of the previous areas of the book.

I should probably begin with the first time Chad Castetter, Pat McClimans, Mario Rubalcaba, and I were all in the same place at the same time. That was August 9, 1993, when the Endpoint/Sunspring U.S. Tour rolled through Mario’s hometown of San Diego, California. Chad and I had kept in touch with Mario on the phone as both of our bands had played with his previous band, 411, on previous tours. We all shared a common enthusiasm for each other’s music.

Jason Noble “Teenage Suicide Portrait” version (above), 75 units, with dog illustration on back.

When we returned from that tour, Jason Thompson quit Sunspring and Forrest Kuhn went away to school. The more Jason and I talked after that, we realized we still wanted to play together. Somehow or another, in early 1994, Mario and I began talking about having him come to Louisville to record a new Sunspring album and do a tour. The band would be the two of us, Jason on guitar, and Pat on bass. It was February, and the stage seemed set for that to happen in April or May. I sent Mario a tape of all our new songs. He took it with him on a five-week European reunion tour of No For An Answer.

While he was gone, things in my life started getting kind of hairy. I knew I needed to get away for a while, so I saved up some money and took some time off from ear X-tacy. I rented a modernized 200-year-old adobe in the middle of northern New Mexico, about halfway between Albuquerque and the Colorado state line. While out there, I put together four new songs and finished four others that I had basic ideas for already. On my way back to Louisville, I decided to end Sunspring once and for all, and I came up with the name Metroschifter. I gave Pat and Chad copies of the tape and mailed one to Mario. Our friend, Roree Krevolin, a booking agent from New York City who was living in Louisville, began booking a tour for us immediately. Mario learned the songs and came to Louisville for the tour about a month and a half later.

In May 1994, we did a week-long tour and recorded this, our first album, at DSL. Then Mario went back to California. Everything happened so quickly that Chad’s work schedule couldn’t be rearranged for him to play with us for the shows or on the album. The recording process was the complete opposite of the way Mike Baker and I approached the Sunspring album. For this, we just set up and rocked. The only tricky part was the laying-in of four string quartet pieces that Jason Noble lent us from his project band, Rachel’s. Those tracks had been recorded in Baltimore a year earlier. And a year later, Rachel’s became a full-fledged band with the release of an album on Quarterstick. We recorded the nine-song Metroschifter album in six hours. It contains all seven songs from the New Mexico demo as well as two others. Pat and I put together “I Love FF” one night in a break from filling Slamdek mail orders. And I made a demo of “Marker” after returning from New Mexico, then we put the song together as a band in one of our four practices. As you know, we didn’t have any money to mix or press the record, and you know the story of our solution to that problem from the liner notes that preceded this.

What those notes don’t tell you about are the innumerable hours that Chris Higdon, Dan Werle, and Chad put into helping me with the process of labeling, sorting, personalizing, and shipping the 500 albums. Despite many pizza breaks, they all got delivered in record time (no pun intended). All this was done at my parents’ house, where I lived after moving out of the 1233 Bardstown Road house in April ’94. All of the records had come and gone in about two weeks.

Virtually as soon as they were all gone, Dennis Remsing from Conversion Records in California offered to reissue the album on all three formats. Many people have asked us how that record ended up on that label, as it’s not characteristic of Conversion’s other music. I suppose we could have shopped it around and planted it on a bigger label, or at least one where it would have been more at home. Endpoint had driven kind of a rocky road with Conversion about five years prior, so we certainly had our reservations about it. However, Pat and I talked about it, and our biggest concern at the time was putting the album back into print right away. We were a new band, but hardly even a band. All in all, we had practiced four times, played six shows, and we had an album out. Pat had moved back to his hometown of Lafayette, Indiana, about three hours away. And he and Chad were both still in Endpoint. Pat was also playing in Falling Forward. So Metroschifter, while it had been a success, was essentially still a side project. We had recouped the cost of the record, but we didn’t have any money to repress it, so we weren’t concerned about anything besides having it remain available. Dennis said that as soon as he received the masters and artwork, it would be about a month until he had the records. That sounded really good to us, so we went with it. Plus we thought it would be really funny to be label mates with the Round 2 song on the Voice Of Thousands compilation. Do some research and you’ll think it’s funny, too.

The Metroschifter in Washington, December 1994: Dave Mason (hired drummer), Pat McClimans, Scott Ritcher.

Pat and I did a tour that November and December with a hired drummer, Dave Mason, who was also from Lafayette. During the grueling, five-week tour with Die 116 from New York City, we covered the entire United States. Parts of it were really fun, but it just wasn’t the same as the May tour. At the beginning of nearly every show, we announced that our other guitarist, Chad Castetter, could sadly not be with us as he had died of a heroin overdose a week and a half ago. This really freaked the Kids out, especially those who knew Chad from Endpoint records and tours. Of course, he was still alive. We were just bored and we thought it would be funny to start some rumors. At some shows we even announced that Mario couldn’t make it because his hand got caught in a combine. To further the rumor, the Conversion reissue is tagged with the line, “This record is dedicated to our friend Chad Castetter, 1971-1994.”

Our music reached a lot of people and we saw some amazing scenery on that tour. The tour itself taught us a valuable lesson: that we shouldn’t so easily deviate from the formula that made the band work in the first place. It also solidified the bond Pat and I share, and made us question the whimsical approach we took to the Metroschifter. I think we decided that if we ever got really serious about the band, and tried to have it function as a normal group with local members and a practice schedule, it would likely fail miserably. Everything the Metroschifter had done so far was done on an impulse without any regard for the consequences. And everything we had done had been a success. As our only pre-planned, serious endeavor to date, the five-week U.S. tour was a financial failure. Touring and playing live were always major priorities for Sunspring and Endpoint. So it took that five-week tour to convince us that, at least for Metroschifter, perhaps touring and trying to act like a regular band is not necessarily the best idea.

Mario came to Louisville again over the Christmas holidays. He joined us for the last half of the last show of the tour in Indianapolis. Chad also played with us that night (as well as the Louisville show we played a few weeks earlier). During Mario’s stay, we played a couple small, local shows, a show in Toledo, Ohio, and recorded a new seven inch at DSL. It was like an amazing dream come true to finally be in the studio with all four of the intended members of the band. The two-song seven inch was the third release on a Madison, Wisconsin label run by our friend Joe Beres, called Foresight Records. “Link” was a song I wrote in October, before the Die 116 tour. For the other song, “Whatever’s Wrong With Me Is Here To Stay,” I wrote the music late one night on tour in the van in Missoula, Montana, and the words the night of the Indianapolis show. The same day we recorded the seven inch, we also recorded another, longer version of “Drive” which was not released. It has a comeback part on the end of it, like “Scoop” does on the album. The Foresight seven inch, For The Love Of Basic Cable, came out the following month. And, yes, its title is a takeoff on Split Lip’s album, For The Love Of The Wounded.

The Metroschifter, May 1995: Chad Castetter, Mario Rubalcaba, Scott Ritcher, Pat McClimans.

Our third record was a split acoustic seven inch with Falling Forward. Pat and I recorded our songs for it in Lafayette in September 1994, and it was to be Slamdek #41, but the label folded before Falling Forward recorded. It came out in April 1995 on Initial Records, cleverly titled Acoustic.

Endpoint broke up in December 1994, Slamdek fell in February 1995, and Falling Forward called it quits that April. Once the dust cleared from all that, Metroschifter’s role became a little clearer. We decided to do a second album and record it in May 1995 for Doghouse Records, unless something better came along. Dirk Hemsath of Doghouse was a good friend of ours and his label has always had nice packaging. Plus his band, Colossus Of The Fall, did a Metroschifter cover (“Square”), and ya just turn your back on that kind of ass kissing.

In the interim, we played five shows with Kevin Coultas on drums. They were: March 5 with Amaroq and Samuel in Andy Tinsley’s basement on Hilliard Avenue; March 24 for the St. Francis Band Battle at the Grand Theatre in New Albany, Indiana; a Derby Day show at Blue Moon Records; a Sunday afternoon in May in Radcliff, Kentucky; and the End Of Slamdek Blowout at the Brewery Thunderdome, May 14. The weekend after the Blowout, we did three shows with Kyle Crabtree on drums. Those were in Toledo, Detroit, and Kalamazoo.

Mario arrived two days after that. We practiced once and hit the road to do four shows before arriving in Chicago, where we recorded our second album, the six-song Fort Saint Metroschifter. We put together two more songs while in the studio, and those became the Doghouse seven inch Number One For A Second, named for a short film Pat and I were working on. Bob Weston, whose work with Rodan had impressed us, recorded these eight songs. He captured with dangerous precision what we actually sound like. While we were in Chicago, we decided not to do any more shows unless all four actual band members could be there.

Conversion’s reissue of our first album eventually came out in September 1995, eight months after it was supposed to, and eighteen months after it was recorded. The artwork and mastering on both of the Doghouse records took forever. I didn’t even send the finished art to Dirk until three months after we recorded. We played two local shows over Thanksgiving holidays with Kyle Crabtree on drums, negating our exclusive commitment to the “four intended members” plan. We planned the shows with Mario, and began selling advance tickets to help pay for his airfare, but he couldn’t make it at the last minute. Since we were excited to play live again, we decided to go ahead and do the shows with Kyle, rather than asking local record stores to mess with refunding the tickets. The two Doghouse releases came out that Friday and the following week.

LINER NOTES:

Side one:
Overlap
Marker
Flat
Drive
Shit Harvester

Side two:
Square
I [heart] FF
Forward
Scoop

Metroschifter (recorded 5/25/94 by Mike Baker, Louisville):
Pat McClimans, bass guitar
Scott Ritcher, guitar/vocals
Mario Rubalcaba, drums

Rachel’s (recorded 5/13/93 by Tony French, Baltimore):
Nat Barret, cello
Christian Frederickson, viola
Michael Kurth, upright bass
Eve Miller, cello
Jason Noble & Christian Frederickson, arrangements

Mastered by George Ingram

Thank you: ATM, Barbot, Barlow, Barochas, Brantley, Brickey, Bucayu, Castetter, Coletta, Collard, Cook, Coultas, Cox, Crabtree, Craft, Davenport, Dollinger, Fritsch, Furnish, Grissom, Hagan, Hasty, Hayden, Hepinstall, Higdon, Hirata, Hornung, Hoskins, Hostetter, Jarboe, Kellerman, Knopfler, Krevolin, Kuhn, Leach, Lorenz, Lutz, Manzoori, Marlowe, Minnick, Mudd, Mueller, Newt, Newton, Noble, Noltemeyer, O’Neil, Osborne, Pennington, Podgursky, Porter, Rauen, Rich, Ritcher, Robbins, Ronay, Sachs, Sampson, Schiffer, Schmidt, Smith, Snodgrass, State, Suds, Thompson, Tillett, Timmons, Tinsley, Wagenshutz, Watson, Way, Weiss, Wilhelm, Wilson, Wilt, Woltz, Yingling, You, Zetti’s.

[The album also included a column titled “History of Metroschifter” which was basically a timeline of the band’s evolution up to the release of the record, “Album Analysis and Commentary” which was a fake letter from one of the Kids by W.C. “Bill” Barbot, a list of everyone who ordered the personalized record in advance, illustrations by Jason Noble and Pat, and photos by Mike Osborne and Walter Porter. A small square included an ad for Macintoschifter, a 3.5″ Macintosh disk that included many of the photos, logos, and artwork from the album, plus a cassette J-card template. The disk, when purchased for $5, could be used to create custom Metroschifter tape covers for the copies of the record that purchasers made for their friends or cars.]

May 28, 1994

Endpoint – If the Spirits Are Willing: Slamdek Discography 1988-1991

May 28, 1994
Endpoint
If the Spirits Are Willing: Slamdek Discography 1988-1991 compact disc
[SDK-9] press-printed one color booklet in jewel box

The eternally-anticipated compact disc issue of Endpoint’s 1989 debut, If The Spirits Are Willing, finally materialized in May of 1994. The CD, while it came over six years after some of its material was recorded, is perhaps one of the finest examples of what Slamdek aspired to be. And it was one of the label’s brightest moments.

The disc contains twenty-five songs, documenting Endpoint’s first 17 song cassette, their tracks from the first Endpoint/Sunspring 7″, their contribution to the Christmas 1990 tape, and five of the seven songs they recorded in 1988 under the name Deathwatch. What makes this CD so complete, however, is not necessarily its music. Its extensive liner notes is where the disc shines brightest. It documents, in a twelve-paragraph essay by guitarist and founder Duncan Barlow, the complete history of the band from Day One through the discography’s release. Also, a seven-paragraph column provides a documentation of the sources, history, and previous availability of every song. It even goes so far as to point out its own inadequacies… it’s two songs short of being a full discography of the band’s ’88 to ’91 work on Slamdek. Two of the Deathwatch tracks, “Wool” and “Dignity,” from the Crain/Deathwatch 7″, are missing; as is the still-unreleased Juniper Hill version of “Wool.”

August 1994, Endpoint in California: Duncan Barlow.

The front and back covers of the CD have been reversed, using the jewel box tray card as the front instead of the booklet. It only makes sense, doesn’t it? The booklet side is 4.75″x4.75″, and the plastic spine is a 0.5″x4.75″ area of unusable space. The tray card side is 5.375″x4.75″ and is all usable space. I had planned to make the artwork on all future Slamdek CD’s this way. But you know how people are when it comes to resisting change. The next compact disc release was Kinghorse’s Too Far Gone, which they wanted arranged the normal way.

The artwork included photos from all eras of the band’s existence, by Chris Higdon, John Toombs, Russ Cermy, and Aaron Wilson. Tim Furnish did the scanning at Kinko’s, and I designed the layout which took more hours than any previous release.

The first batch of Endpoint CD’s was 1,000 units manufactured by Rainbo Records in California (bad idea). 200 copies were given to the band to sell on an upcoming U.S. tour. Another set of 500 units was ordered in November 1994. Those discs arrived when I was away on a five-week Metroschifter U.S. tour. My mom and Carrie sent most of them to distributors, and the discs were all gone before Slamdek went under in February 1995.

One last note, anyone who has ever dealt with the fickle format of DAT, will undoubtedly recognize the sweet sound of the digital glitch on the Spirits CD at 0:19:36 (at 2:01 during “Final Stand”). It was on the Juniper Hill master and unfortunately could not be fixed before the CD’s were pressed. Track 18 was 13 seconds of intentionally blank space used to separate If The Spirits Are Willing from the eight other songs on the disc.

LINER NOTES:

01 Thought You Were
02 Mirrored Image
03 Dignity
04 Ignorance Downfall
05 Label Me
06 Wool
07 Final Stand
08 Way Back
09 Axis Crew
10 Face
11 Wrong
12 Stick Around
13 Wopner
14 Shattered Justice
15 Rungless Ladder
16 Religion Crisis
17 Exit
18 [blank]
19 Promise
20 Priorities
21 Endpoint Outro
22 Stick Around
23 Ignorant Downfall
24 Invent A Law
25 Label Me
26 Death Watch

Tracks 1 through 17 were originally issued June 20, 1989 as If The Spirits Are Willing on cassette. With the exception of track 6, If The Spirits Are Willing was recorded by Todd Smith in March 1989 at Juniper Hill Creative Audio. Produced by Cubby Cleaver and Endpoint. Rob Pennington vocals, Duncan Barlow guitar, Rusty Sohm drums, Jason Graff bass. Track 6: Duncan Barlow guitar, Rusty Sohm bass. “Wool” was recorded in Rusty’s apartment on digital two track by Scott Ritcher to replace another song called “Wool” from the Spirits session that the band chose to omit at the last minute. As a result, Track 6 required being a specific length to fit into its location on the digital master. The original release cassettes had “Wool” fade-in to make it shorter. This compact disc has the unfaded start-to-finish “Wool” from which the other version was made.

Tracks 19 through 21 feature a different lineup than If The Spirits Are Willing. Rob Pennington vocals, Duncan Barlow guitar, Chad Castetter guitar, Lee Fetzer drums, Jason Hayden bass.

Tracks 19 and 20, “Promise” and “Priorities,” comprised one side of the first Endpoint/Sunspring split 7″, released April 5, 1991. These two songs were recorded by Howie Gano at Sound on Sound Studios [November 1990].

“Endpoint Outro,” Track 21, appeared on Slamdek’s compilation cassette Christmas 1990, released December 22, 1990. This song was recorded on digital two track in Lee’s apartment by Scott.

Tracks 22 through 26 were recorded in February 1988 at Artists’ Recording Service before the group was called Endpoint. This lineup under the name Deathwatch was: Rob Pennington vocals, Duncan Barlow guitar, Greg Carmichael guitar, Rusty Sohm drums, Jason Graff bass. Track 23 appeared on the Crain/Deathwatch 7″ (along with A.R.S. recordings of “Dignity” and the aforementioned other song called “Wool”) which was limited to 300 copies. Those records were given away free September 7, 1990 at Louisville’s Zodiac Club during a Crain, Endpoint, Sister Shannon show. Tracks 22, and 24 through 26 have remained unreleased until now.

The Slamdek Record Companyslamdek.com
K Composite Media,

January 17, 1994

Sancred – Clamato

January 17, 1994

Sancred
Clamato cassette
[SDK-36] photocopied double sided inserts in books-on-tape long boxes, laser printed labels

The story of Sancred’s relationship with the Louisville scene is a strange and checkered one. And in many respects, the Clamato cassette is also curiously out of place among the rest of the Slamdek catalog. While seeming kind of unusual at the time, the benefit that hindsight typically provides doesn’t make much more sense of the situation.

The nine songs that Clamato contains are mostly tracks originally intended for a Lather/Sancred split 12″ on Self Destruct. For whatever reason, that record was never created. Lather released their six songs, combined with their self-titled seven inch, on the Self Destruct CD, A Modest Proposal. Sancred’s songs were left with no home. By the time they came out on Slamdek, the recordings were ten months old. The band had ceased to exist about five months after they were recorded, as guitarist Steve Goetschius had gone away to college at Murray State University. They reformed briefly and played a show in January 1994 to coincide with the release of Clamato.

Sancred first surfaced in the summer of 1992 with the song “New Lint” on 3 Little Girls Recordings’ first Aftereffects Of Insomnia compilation. That fall, they put out a six-song cassette as the first release on Scott Walker’s new Counterfeit Records (“Downstairs,” “Water,” “Rejected Signs,” “Stale,” “Deer Season,” and “Backfired”). At the end of 1992, they contributed two songs (“Dead Wrong” and “Empty”) to a self-released seven inch with Concrete. Clamato’s nine songs, while being different recordings, duplicated three of the nine songs the group had in existing releases. Their music was more heavy metal than punk or hardcore, and their vocals were strained, over the top, and, shall we say, out to lunch. The release of the cassette came about when drummer Adam Colvin and I were talking at a show in the fall of ’93.

Obviously, as people went to see the Sancred play when they were together, and the group had a draw, there was somewhat of a demand in the community for the songs to become available. But since the band was no longer together, and the turnover rate in scene members was fairly high at the time, whatever demand that existed seemed to dwindle as the months grew on. And while, in retrospect, it would seem that if there was something unusual about the release that made its existence peculiar, it would be easy to pinpoint or explain. Perhaps it was a combination of elements. It was the type of release that I both wanted and didn’t want for the label. And that became more apparent as the project progressed. Its good points were that all of the material was already recorded, the band wasn’t interested in specific details about the artwork (this allowed me to assemble the cover using their ideas but without them looking over my shoulder), and they were part of another subsection of the Louisville scene that Slamdek hadn’t been too involved in. Its drawbacks were some of the same reasons; they didn’t seem as interested in what the band could do for the product, as what the product could do for the band. As a result, the product died quickly. As interest in the band faded, so did interest in their posthumous release. January’s Slamdek catalog tagged the Sancred cassette with the line, “Coming in March on compact disc,” but when the cassette hardly moved, the CD was cancelled. “The debut and posthumous full-length release from Louisville’s premiere heavy riff three piece.”

The songs were from a Sound On Sound session in March 1993. They were all recorded by Howie Gano. I compiled all the cover artwork on the new Macintosh Performa 476 at my parents’ house, using pictures the band gave me which Tim Furnish scanned at Kinko’s. The cover photos were taken by bassist Scott Bacon at some weird park in West Virginia, or something like that. The printouts were 600 dpi, for a change, and I did those at the new, super huge Kinko’s on Market Street. The books-on-tape longbox packaging had printing on both sides of the inserted cover. That was a new feature of this release. The inside included individual band member photos, lyrics, and a free Sancred/Slamdek sticker. The band was given a bunch of free tapes to sell, in addition to a payment (per their request) of about $90.00 in August of 1994. Nearly all Slamdek bands received an excess number of free units of their releases in lieu of royalties, since the label was typically not in a position to spare any money. Also, an artist could be given say, 40 cassettes, which cost about $100.00 to manufacture, and they could sell those tapes for $7.00 each, thus earning $280.00. Both the band and the label win, because if the label didn’t have any money, the band wouldn’t have gotten anything. But since the label could give the band music to sell, both parties could get what they need. Naturally, it is the label’s responsibility to pay its artists a fair percentage of the money earned from their releases. But providing units instead of cash tends to be the better deal for both parties. The largest actual sum of money any artist ever received was a payment to Endpoint of about $300.00 in the summer of 1992. They also had requested money instead of units as their manager, Andy Tinsley, had amassed a large telephone bill booking their tour.

Clamato lasted about four months and sold a nominal 133 units. Other than documenting the larger part of Sancred’s work for posterity, it did serve another historical purpose for the label. It set off an obvious warning flag that a record label in its eighth year should be dealing in items of a wider-scaled interest. Slamdek seemed to operate on two different levels; that of a hometown, neighborhood label that would release a title knowing of its limited potential; and that of a stepping stone, sending other titles into national distribution for bands that would soon enough leave for larger labels outside of Louisville. The question had to be posed of how lucrative a label like this could be. And furthermore, whether or not the hands that made it work were happy in tirelessly working within such an operation. When the Sancred cassette was released, and when these questions were coming up more often than ever, I was sharing a house at 1233 Bardstown Road with Carrie and Layla. At the time, Carrie and I were temporarily broken up, but her influence on Slamdek as a voice of reason, embodied in an economics major living across the hall, is undeniable. Carrie’s frustration with the way I ran Slamdek was a constant cause for discussion, and usually a subsequent reformation of methods. It would be four months before another official Slamdek release, one that was a long time coming, the CD version of Endpoint’s classic If The Spirits Are Willing. That compact disc, followed by The Metroschifter’s debut LP, jump started the label. The new emphasis on focus, goals, and the common sense approach of running Slamdek with the intention of turning a profit, were all directly attributable to Carrie’s influence.

Sancred’s story takes an even more perplexing turn over two years later. In the summer of 1995, many former Louisville bands seemed to be jumping on the reunion show bandwagon. Kinghorse and Erchint and are two that come to mind. Some of the former members of Sancred were joking around one night and thought it would be funny to do a Sancred reunion show… but not practice before it. They went through with the plan, rented the American Legion Post on Bardstown Road across from Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, and added some other bands like Hedge to the bill. Everyone showed up, tons of kids, including the headliner… without their equipment. Scott Bacon and Adam Colvin borrowed equipment from Hedge, and along with some friends, got on stage and made a lot of noise. They played nothing that could’ve been loosely mistaken for a Sancred song. Needless to say, the kids who had all paid $6 to get into the show were not happy, and they trashed the place. Ryan Stratton of Hedge called into the Sell Out Louisville Style radio program that week to publicly apologize and let everyone know that they were unaware of Sancred’s plan to rip everyone off. Ryan was a guest on the radio show the following week and attempted to help further clarify what actually happened. Several callers still were not satisfied. And so, allegedly, ends Sancred’s bizarre journey through Louisville punk rock history. Hmmm.

LINER NOTES:

Side one:
Subsidence
Waste
Fragment
Dead Wrong

Side two:
Sauce
Pharmacy
New Lint
Backfired
Halter

Recorded at Sound On Sound by Howie Gano.
Produced by Sancred.
Photos by Michael Brown.
How it looks by Scott Ritcher.
Scans by Tim Furnish.

Adam Colvin, drums
Steve Goetschius, guitar/vocals
Scott Bacon, bass/vocals